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I am in love with a ghost. The ghost’s name is Mia Zapata. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of her. Even though she was this brilliant and powerful voice of the DIY punk scene, many of my musician and punk fan friends had never heard of her. On the other hand My 75 year old mother had heard of her, only because she watched Unsolved Mystery.

It is a shame that such a beautiful spirit is remembered more for the way she died than her artistic talents. It is impossible to find anything written about her that doesn’t also talk about her death. Even I am going to discuss the circumstances of her untimely demise. I just hope she’s remembered more for her life than her death.

Mia Zapata was born on August 25th 1965, in Louisville Kentucky a distant descendant of famed Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapata…

I don’t remember the exact moment my life was changed by someone with a developmental disability. The memories seem far away, blurry, as if they don’t belong to me. But this is what happens after you’ve been working with adults with developmental disabilities for eight years. You change.

They don’t tell you that when you’re filling out your application. Instead, they tell you about the hours, the health benefits, the 401(k) plan, the programs and the strategies. But they don’t tell you about the fact if you do it right, you’ll never be the same.

They don’t tell you it will be the most amazing job you’ve ever had. On other days, it can be the worst. They can’t describe on paper the emotional toll it will take on you. They can’t tell you there may come a time where you find you’re more comfortable surrounded by people with developmental disabilities than you are with the general population. They don’t tell you you’ll come to love them, and there will be days when you feel more at home when you’re at work than when you’re at home, sitting on your couch. But it happens.

They don’t tell you about the negative reactions you may face when you’re out in the community with someone with a developmental disability. That there are people on this earth who still think it’s OK to say the R-word. That people stare. Adults will stare. You will want to say something, anything, to these people to make them see. But at the end of the day, your hands will be tied because some things, as you learn quickly, can’t be explained with something as simple as words. They can only be felt. And most of the time, until someone has had their own experience with someone with a developmental disability, they just won’t understand.

They train you in CPR and first aid, but they can’t tell you what it feels like to have to use it. They don’t tell you what it is like to learn someone is sick and nothing can be done. They can’t explain the way it feels when you work with someone for years and then one day they die.

They can’t explain the bond direct service personnel develop with the people they are supporting. I know what it’s like to have a conversation with someone who has been labeled non-verbal or low-functioning. After working with someone for awhile, you develop a bond so strong they can just give you a look and you know exactly what it means, what they want and what they’re feeling. And most of the time, all it boils down to is they want to be heard, listened to and included. Loved.

When you apply for this job, they do tell you you’ll be working to teach life skills. But what they don’t tell you is while you’re teaching someone, they’ll also be teaching you. They have taught me it’s OK to forgive myself when I have a bad day. There’s always tomorrow and a mess-up here and there doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. They have taught me to slow down, to ponder, to take the time to just look around and take in this beautiful world and all of the simple joys we are blessed to encounter every day.

So when did I change? I realize now there wasn’t one pivotal moment. Instead, it was a million little moments, each important in their own way, that when added together changed me. And I’m grateful for each one.

My on- going struggle has been with this seemingly new invention that, by the looks of it , was put in place to be eco-friendly . Too many times though I find this obnoxious green handle to be asking me more than if I just want to flush? Or if I want to just eliminate a mass to press down or fluid pull up. But rather it is asking me how much force, energy and water do I want to use? How wasteful do you want to be? Then the reasoning behind my decisions becomes much more complicated as my means of measuring are, at this point, limited to visual assessment. The theorizing that if I press down every time I assure that the task at hand will always be completed, but I’m left to questions that perhaps the extra water to assure completion was an oversight and, I, have in fact, wasted water and energy, the very reason this little handle was put in place to prevent. On the other side, I could error on the side of pulling up on the handle therefore ensuring I use as little water and energy as possible. But what if it doesn’t execute the task completely? Then I’m left with the options to leave my eliminations for the public to see or proceed with flush down for the 2nd time , in which I will have, for sure wasted and endangered the planet because of my over conscious effort to preserve water. So alas, in my struggle to make sense of the world I live in or in this case the stall I have so careless chosen to briefly reside in I resort to the fact that there is no right answer , as I see it, and as I pull the handle sideways I allow the porcelain bowl to play a game of roulette with itself and leave it up to the decision of the toilet gods to make the decision for me.

The true indicator of a trauma is how vividly and detailed you can remember such events, or altogether block them out. Many time’s we gaze at others problems and think to ourselves “so glad that’s not my life, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself” or wake up sweating with tears streaming down our cheek only to breath a sigh of relief to find that it was only just a dream. One could say I was living in a dream in my own life and the day I woke up was the last day I looked at the world with rose colored glass. Prior to that day I was unbelievably the happiest person I knew. Remembering back to those dreamy days it almost seemed unfair how ridiculously joyous and at peace I was. But honestly who lives in a 24/7 untouched, unshaken world? When I was living in that world it felt as though someone had given me an undeserving gift, a gift that I had no clue how to repay. I had no right to be living so high on life. When I did get hit with truths too hard to handle I could not wipe the tears away like I use to from horrific dreams. I could not ignore it, I could not escape the problem when I was the problem all I could do was crawl back in bed In the hope to escape. I had been robbed of a precious gift that I had taken for granted, things to great to last, things I wish I could get back

I remember when I read the symptom of depression “sleepi ng frequently” I felt that it was interesting for website to have the gall to tell people how to spot us but no explanation for why we are us. I theorize that all the sleeping people are just trying to wake from the nightmare and get back to the places they use to be, like a time machine. And after at least ten years of suffering with depression the toughest part of the disease, for me, was the ability to remember when I WAS happy, I can still remember how it looked and felt, free.

Many have an opinion or thought of their own, friends, family, celebs, health-nuts, and many of which do not hold a single Phd of experience. In the end, I’ve become victim, three times over by people who knew better, people who didn’t, and myself, in a desperate attempt to swim out of the mass of depression. The stigma and ignorance that surrounded my state, along with the discovery of how easy one can be prescribed an unsuited narcotic to ones misdiagnosed condition , would soon lead me into a tug –of-war, on-the wagon-off-the-wagon battle. Too many times, unbeknownst to me, I would turn myself into a guinea pig, experimented on whilst the public on looked at the behaviors that resulted. Testing out new depression drugs on the market that doctors would prescribe me, paid behind closed doors I’m sure for “X” amount to be distributed to clients. Enduring all the tribulation associated with being give meds in SSRI and NRI categories when in actuality my solution would be in another category all its own.

And as the triad of insurance, doctors and pharm companies played monkey in the middle with my head while filling their pockets I would wrestle for years with the Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde inside……this is not the life I chose.

Summer, you’re like a fire in my blood trying to escape. Drinks get harder, dancing gets dirtier, music gets louder, skin gets hotter, nights playing hide and seek in the woods, swims in the cool dark deep, singing Ed Sheeran late into the night. So get lost in haunted place cause we just don’t care, and candle light dinners in cemeteries where we just let go.

Vinyl spins, and 60 smelling smoke dances in the orange glow of the evening…

While looking on many a site and even going so far as to google I have alas found that there is no dating site which supports effeminate straight men looking for single females. But look for any other type of site and you will find hookup, marriage single, christian single, bbw, sugardaddys, fitness, BDSM, seniors, Jewish, Asian, black, Hispanic,farmers, military, virgins, men seeking men, women seeking women, HIV seeking HIV, single parents, lawyers looking for lawyers dating sites but try and find a dating site on effeminate men looking for single females it doesn’t exist….

It has only recently with within my circle of friends become an admitted confession of desire and in my empirical study have found that it a population is desired. When studying men who admit to be such it seems to either be to their shame or their advantage. But I believe it to be a hidden jem in this world. Just as there are effeminate men in the world there is equally a balance of females who feel masculine in characteristics or nature but I believe both to be placed in this world to balance each other out. As I was with a man who was more on the feminine and I more on the take control side it seemed to balance itself out and where I do understand the need to want masculiness from a man I found that every so often the role switchal would occur where he would be more the aggressor and I the more submissive which lead for a very nice versatile existence.

On the other side of things, as I am know currently single I see the difficulties, as I flip through the dating sites of dating a overly masculine man. The problem arising that they generically would hate to ever admit or try a more docile approach and that there would always be head-butting and thought it might lead to very fierce intimate life I can also see it slipping quickly into one of abusiveness. The search continues…..

More than just a gleam in Mama’s eye now. It’s in Variety, and its official, the Paint It Black movie is shot and wrapping. Amber Tamblyn, a true force of nature, who fell in love with the book back in 2007, wrote the screenplay, fought to get it made and in the end, directed it as her debut behind the camera. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) and Janet McTeer (OBE, Tony winner, 2 time Oscar Nominee) are starring, along with Alfred Molina (“Call me Fred”) as Cal, Nancy Kwan (The World of Suzie Wong!) as a refashioned Sofia, Emily Rios as Pen and Rhys Wakefield as Michael, plus Chris Palko (Cage) as Nick Nitro, and Mish Way from White Lung as Lola Lola.

It’s been an incredible journey–the book was optioned before, and with a screenplay that was truly–OMFG. It took someone who loved it, fought for it, was passionate about…

Hey I just met you, and your hands are pretty, and here’s my number, I might be crazy. It’s hard to say goodbye to you, and here’s my number, so call me crazy. The posts have been found on this Reddit thread.

Recently started talking to a new guy, I sent him a text saying I was going to go home and change and get my car and I would be over. And he flipped out saying “omg if it’s such a chore then don’t come out” followed by “you’re probably stalling to fuck your ex” and then some other statements. Side note, we have been talking a week and never once have any of these problems arisen. So, yeah, red flag that he is probably crazy.